Established in Tulsa in 1960 by the W.K. Warren Foundation, Saint Francis is the largest medical center in Oklahoma and has gained international recognition in various clinical areas. The medical and dental staff numbers over 600, and the hospital employs more than 3,000 people.

Beth Treaster, Librarian at Saint Francis, comments:

"We have had Knowledge Finder® for four years here at Saint Francis Hospital. We have Medline, Cinahl, HealthStar, and PsycLit networked throughout the campus. I am totally convinced that KF is the best product available for end-user searching. I've used all the competition's products, and KF is the easiest to use and yields the best results.

"We have patrons at all levels of searching sophistication, from the patient who has never held a mouse before, to the very computer savvy physician. That is my favorite aspect of KF; anyone with any level of experience can get a good search. The novice can get something just by typing a few words in the blue box. On the other hand, residents complain that KF isn't complex like the search engine they used at medical school. I just take a little time to show them that KF is easier, and will still do all the advanced features like Boolean, subheadings, etc., and they come around.

"As for training, I have had great success with small group and one-on-one teaching. I'm sure formal classes could be fine too, but there is something about the ease and friendliness of KF that lends it to informal, "Let me show you how neat this is." I can get patrons doing basic searches in about five minutes. For people who seem more adept or who are going to need to do lots of serious searching, I take another five minutes and show them how to explode terms, variant vs. exact, fuzzy vs boolean, etc. In 1997, I showed KF to 409 new patrons.

"Even though Medline is now free on the Web, we will continue with KF here at Saint Francis. It is an established product here."

Beth Treaster
Librarian
Saint Francis Hospital and Saint Francis Health System
7 March 1998

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